‘Seeing’ a vessel say by the bridge watch is only one facet...and certainly not the end all.
Even in the 80’s when I was the OOD of a Destroyer the radar scopes ruled the day, and I have no doubt the radar image of the container ship was known to the Destroyer’s bridge team probably 15-20 miles out. All contacts were monitored on the oscilloscope display with a grease pen back in the day...mark the contact when obtained, then mark it again 2 minutes later and draw a line..update the line a few minutes later etc. I’m sure CIC was monitoring the vessels path also. When the two vessels ‘paths’ were due to intersect or meet based on available data, the rules of the road should have been applied and appropriate maneuvers enacted to avoid a collision. Often times, vessels talk to verify intentions..though sometimes the containers ships are on auto-pilot and raising a person can be a problem...but a USN ship has MULTIPLE sources of data including the bridge watches and a bridge team (OOD, Conning officer, QM, CIC) to gather info and avoid this type of scenario. In open sea saling this should NEVER happen, but while things can get dicey in crowded waters, 55 miles out I don’t think this was the case.
Having made this transit up Sagami Bay to Yokosuka numerous times as XO and Navigator, I can assure you that both the Capt and Navigator were on the bridge. At times we would have 50 plus radar contacts that we were watching. It was a very stressful home coming to our home port. It is likely that the freighter had minimal watch standers and lookouts. A Naval vessel sails blacked out with only running lights on. It is possible the vessel overtook the Fitz and they didn’t react in time to get out of the way.